When Last I Saw You
by wbss21
Summary: When Thor finds him, there is in his eyes a familiar, boiling rage, thick covering a relief so powerful as to be called anguish, and Loki hates himself. "You're alive." He says, half astonished, mingling with disgust, and it is for himself, Loki knows. It is for Thor himself, for how he has again allowed himself to be fooled.
1. Chapter 1

**So, I got this idea from a poster on tumblr, who spoke about head canoning that Thor: Ragnarok was a story being narrated by Thor, that the entire film was essentially his fantasy, which is why it's so unrealistically optimistic, despite all these terrible things happening, and that what really happened was much, much darker, and would reflect such if told from Loki's perspective. So, I decided to write it! Here's the first chapter! If you like it, let me know your thoughts, and thank you for reading!**

 **When Last I saw You**

 **Chapter 1:**

When Thor finds him, there is in his eyes a familiar, boiling rage, thick covering a relief so powerful as to be called anguish, and Loki hates himself.

"You're alive." He says, half astonished, mingling with disgust, and it is for himself, Loki knows. It is for Thor himself, for how he has again allowed himself to be fooled.

Loki wishes he would not.

He did not fool Thor this time. He did not lie.

He knows not how to explain such to his brother. Knows not how to make Thor believe him, when indeed a fool he would be, to believe a word which dripped from his liars tongue.

"... Aye." He answers, and steps back, for he sees in Thor the violence of their youth. Days when his brother's powerful feeling took him full, and woe be to any so unlucky then to be got in his path. Oft it was Loki so in his way, for Loki was ever at Thor's side when they were children, and oft it was Loki who then fell beneath stone fists thrown in blind passion.

And never was Loki a match for Thor. Not in such things as that.

Thor comes at him, and Loki stumbles, a sick panic filling his chest, and he thinks for a moment, wildly, that Thor will kill him.

Bitter memory. Skin turning ice blue and wretched realization crippling his mind. Picture of his brother, soaked in black blood, steaming off his skin in the cold of a desolate plain, blinding bright smile shown as the sun on his golden face and love filled eyes as they gazed upon him.

" _Did you see me cleave it's head with my ax Loki!" And he laughs, throwing his head back with the power of his mirth. "How easily a giant's skull splits in two! But truly 'tiss the power of my arm which drove the blade through!"_

" _Yes Thor." Loki answers, and grasps his hands together to keep the sight of their trembling from his brother._

"How?" Thor presses at him and Loki falls.

The weight of Mjolnir on his chest is too familiar, breath tight and trapped in his throat, mind dizzy with irrational terror. Trapped. He's trapped, and cannot move, and his brother will surely kill him this time.

" _How_!?" Thor presses again, bearing Mjolnir's head down with crushing force and Loki gasps at the pain of it.

It never did quite heal. Where the Kursed's blade went through him.

"... I don't know." He manages, voice weak and strangled. "Thor, please, I don't..."

"I saw you die." Thor speaks over him. "I held you in my arms. _How_ are you yet living?!"

"I do not _know_ Thor!" Loki spits, his own anger bubbling now up into his throat. For he knows in Thor's question is the accusation. Knows what his brother truly means to ask. "I was dead. I felt myself dying."

Thor gazes at him with hopeless disbelief, and Loki feels his eyes burn with frustration and hate.

"Believe me not, if that is your want." He hisses, hands coming up to grasp the head of Mjolnir, the power of its magic thrumming loud against his own. "But I speak true. I felt myself dying, and when I awoke, I was alone. You and your woman _gone_."

He cannot hide the rawness from his voice with his last words.

He had thought himself beyond such sentiment. Thought himself beyond caring what those who had stolen him and raised him under the weight of their lies thought and felt.

Only he had been lying to himself, and that he had known always.

When he had woken on Svartalfheim and found himself abandoned, there had been pain like a blade in his lungs and to his shame he had sat there for long hours afterward and wept like a child.

Thoughts had riven his mind. Surely Thor had gone after Malekith, to Midgard.

And more to his shame, Loki had stumbled to his feet, the poison of the Kursed blade turning his extremities to useless flesh and his thoughts to confused fragments, his feet staggering forward as he attempted to move across the blackened wastes of that realm, instinct first to open a portal to Midgard and follow Thor there.

But doubt had soon snaked its way into those thoughts. He was useless as he was. Poisoned and bleeding profoundly. And if Thor saw him alive...

" _I can offer you vengeance. And afterward... this cell_."

Eternity in a cell.

Loki could think then only of the maddening state of it. Days when he had felt himself losing any sense of proportion or reality. Days when he had found himself gripping at his hair, tearing at it in despair and a desperate, suffocating _aloneness_. For he had known then truly he was alone, and would be always, and the thought... the thought had been raging fire in his brain, burning him alive, and he would rather have been dead then. Would rather, then to face the hated cruelty of the Norns fate for him. When he had known with an absoluteness without exception that his family did not love him... had never loved him.

… Why had they not asked him of what befell him in the void? Why had they never asked, even if only once?

And he remembers Thor's face. Remembers his eyes as he'd held him. And Loki had been scared. He'd been so scared. He hadn't wanted to die, and Thor... Thor had looked at him with _love_ , and Loki had loved him back, and had wanted to say so many things, but all of would come to his lips were only apologies. For all of it. Spoken too late and useless and weak. Apologies for what he'd done. And for what he was.

Oh, how he had only wanted to be Thor's brother. How much he had wanted...

He knew then, if he lived, if he survived the Kursed's mortal blow, he could not seek Thor out. For fear beyond that cell crushed his mind. Fear of what he now saw. Thor's gaze, full of mistrust and betrayal, only worse still, for the love which remained present, and Loki knew how wrongly he had misjudged his brother then. How truly Thor had always loved him. And never again did Loki desire to betray that love. How desperately he wished to hold to Thor's eyes in his memory, when he held him as he died, and let that be an end to it. Let also then his death be Thor's last memory of him, so he might think less lowly of his wicked and weak brother. The wretch who had done naught but cast a pall over the shining greatness of the House of Odin and the Realm Eternal.

Oh, why could Thor not simply hate him, and free him of his hate for himself?

At last Thor lifts Mjolnir from his chest, stepping back, his eyes shifting round to the gathered spectators, as if for the first time really taking note of them, and Loki feels a hollow emptiness inside.

If the people of Asgard had ever suspected him not to be Odin, they spoke nothing of it, and Loki had fallen into an almost morbid excitement of anticipation for when they would, and what price they would exact on him, a frost giant, masquerading upon the throne of Asgard.

Tales had spread through the realm of the heroism he had displayed in the wastes of Svartalfheim. Thor himself had seen to that, when he had returned from saving the Nine Realms, as Loki had known he would, and had regaled those gathered at the banquet thrown in his honor, of how his younger brother had risked and eventually sacrificed his life not only to save Thor's own, but that of his woman, Jane Foster.

Those gathered had shown grand displays of gratitude and pride in their fallen prince, and so long as Thor remained upon Asgard, they sung Loki's praises, ballads performed throughout the city's many staged venues depicting his supposed great courage and hero's death, worthy of the gates of Valhalla.

… That had ended upon Thor's departure.

It was since the youngest of boyhood Loki could recall the whispered insults and snide commentary of the Asgardian court towards the person of Odin's strange second son.

Ergi, they would call him to his back, for how womanly he seemed to them in his possession of seidr and his crafting of it. And for his physical weakness, most plain in direct contrast to the physical power and strength of arm possessed in Thor.

And as his power grew, so too did the insults, and the openness with which they were spoken.

Thor remembered it not.

As Thor chose, indeed, to remember not so many things of their youth.

Loki understood why.

How grave a blight such memories were, upon the pristine happiness of Thor's most carefree childhood.

How difficult to see the cruelty of others, when you know for yourself only their love and kindness.

"What mockery you make of your own sacrifice Loki?" Thor looks back to him, and Loki rises with wariness, aware still of his brother's anger.

The people gathered round look on in their sneering countenances, their faces mirroring Thor's own betrayal and disgust. Only theirs is for him. For Loki. Their hatred rolls off them in palpable waves. They move not for Thor's presence, and for the anticipation of Thor's revenge.

"You think this mockery mine own." Loki states. For he knows indeed 'tiss what Thor thinks. What Thor wishes to believe.

No, ballads sung in Loki's praise had ended upon Thor's departure from the realm.

In their place had grown satire, had grown open mocking displays of Loki's death, and the nature of his being. Hatred for the Jotnar remained as ever in Asgard.

Loki had allowed it. For what truer confirmation of their hatred of him? What truer confirmation of Loki, no one's son? Loki of no realm.

Loki shakes his head.

"They mock me in stead." He tells Thor. "What need to mock myself?"

Thor glares at him, face tight with apprehension.

"... They would not dare it." He says after a moment, and Loki cannot help it now. He laughs. True amusement catching him and bursting the sound forth.

"Indeed, you think not?" He asks his brother, and feels his heart heavy for the confusion and denial deep in Thor's eyes.

How horrible, for such a warrior prince, to know how utterly he has failed in his duty towards his family.

" _I'll always protect you Loki_." Thor had told him when they were children. " _I swear it_."

"What matters it?" Loki says. He should not make Thor suffer so. He should not. "You discover the truth. I am not dead. And what then will you have done with me? Now that you know?"

"... I thought you dead." Thor repeats, and the anguish now dissipates the anger. "Why... why did you not tell me? Why did you hide here?"

Loki cannot answer this. Would not answer this, before all those gathered. A better play for their amusement than any put on by them.

"Not here Thor." Loki tells him, and hopes his brother will understand.

Again Thor glances to those gathered round, and perhaps he takes note now of the murmured whispers and agitation working through the crowd. He looks back to Loki, and Loki stares fixedly in return.

"The palace." Thor says flatly, and Loki is given no further warning before his brother grabs hold his wrist and launches them into the air, letting fly.

Loki has always hated this. Hated the motion of flying like this. With such awful speed and violence.

He had given up telling Thor so long centuries past. His brother had never listened.

He feels dizzy and weak as at last they land, and he turns from Thor, vicious anger like bile rising up into his throat, and he presses it down with effort.

It will not do, to begin an argument with Thor. Not here. Not now.

"Loki," Thor calls to him, and he stands stiff, jaw tight as he breathes through his nose. Calm. He needs to stay calm. "tell me why you have hidden here. Why did you not tell me you lived? And where is our father? You have not..."

"He lives." Loki tells him quickly, keeping his back to him. "He is on Midgard."

"Midgard?" Thor questions, voice astonished. "But... why? _How_?"

"I put him there." Loki answers, voice almost harsh as finally he turns to look at his brother. "He wanders that world now, stripped of his memory."

He knows his mistake before he finishes the words, Thor again coming at him, and Loki does nothing to evade him as his brother grabs hold of him by the arms, lifting him bodily and slamming him back against a wall.

"What did you _do_ to him Loki!?" He bellows, eyes flashing dangerously.

Loki should be more frightened, perhaps. But a wave of indifference washes over him then, so powerful he feels oddly resigned.

"What I just told you Thor. I cast a spell to strip his mind and set him loose among the humans. No harm has come to him. He retains his power, only simply remembers not how to call it to hand."

Thor again slams him, hard against the wall, knocking the air quick from Loki's lungs, powerful hands tightening with vicious anger over his arms, threatening to crush, and it is all Loki can do to keep his face impassive.

"Call him back!" He snaps. "Loki, I swear, if you do not..."

"I cannot call him back." Loki speaks over him. "I have not Heimdall's power. And Heimdall wanders the forests of our realm."

" _Why_?" Thor questions, patience thin.

"He was banished. By Odin. You recall his act of treason in helping us to escape the realm, do you not? That be Odin's judgment upon him, before you go accusing me of all and sundry."

Loki cannot keep the derision from his voice. Heimdall remained to him, as ever, a hated being, for how he could not forget the Watcher's attempt on his life, those years ago on the Bifrost. The blood lust in Heimdall's eyes, and Loki had known as surely then as ever he had known anything, the god's intent to kill him. Nor could Loki cast from his mind the centuries before of Heimdall's barely concealed contempt, each chance taken by the Watcher to humiliate and disparage. And Loki had wondered for so long, in awful self-disgust, why it was Heimdall, his father's nearest friend, so hated and despised him. Why his all seeing eyes never truly looked at him. Looked through him, rather, his tone always so cold, even cruel, when towards Thor and his friends, there had always been warmth and love. Convinced further in such treatment of his own lack. Convinced there had been something wrong in him. For Heimdall to hate him so, Loki thought. Nights spent wondering what it was. What it was about him that made others hate him so much...

It was only after... when Loki had learned the truth... It was only then he at last understood. For Heimdall had always known what he was. And if others knew not, still, they sensed it. They felt the wrongness about him.

Thor looks at him still with such suspicion, and oh, it is every bit as awful as Loki imagined, that judging, mistrustful gaze.

"Why have you done this?" He asks again, at last loosening his hold and setting Loki to the floor. "Did you stage your own death?"

Loki nearly lashes out then. Nearly hits Thor across the mouth for his ignorant stupidity. He remembers, though, Thor had thought him lost before, and neither then had he died. The Norns, it seemed, would not allow him that peace. And Thor, in his simplicity, had doubtless thought that too a planned course.

Thor was not stupid. Only he was simple, and despite his growth, still saw so much in such terms. There was only ever wrong and right for Thor. Only ever good and bad. Only ever one reason for anything.

" _Nay_ Thor." He spits, keeping his hands clenched to fists at his sides. "I told you true. I took the Kursed's blade for you. You believe it not? Then witness it's proof for thine own eyes!"

He twists his hands, magicking away his tunic, revealing to his brother's wide and horrified eyes the ugly snarl of twisted, scarred flesh which spread like something shattered over his pale skin.

"It is..." Thor starts, and before he can finish, Loki reaches out, grasping his brother's hand and pressing it firm against his chest, letting him feel the raised and ruined tissue of his flesh.

"'Tiss no illusion brother." He snarls, exhausted and angry. "I took the Kursed's blade for you... I took it for our _mother_."

His eyes sting treacherously, and he lets Thor go, turning from him, dragging his palm against them to stamp it out.

"You will ask next the reasons for my actions against Odin, and I answer you this Thor."

He pauses, memories of Frigga strong in his mind, and for a moment it is difficult to breathe.

"... He would have put me back in that cell." He forces out. "As you would also have done. As you _promised_ to do."

He turns towards Thor, glaring up at him with unflinching determination.

"I refused to go back to that. I _would not_."

"And the throne?" Thor presses after a moment. "Why have you taken it? Why do you masquerade as our father?"

"Do you really believe Odin's absence would have gone unnoticed Thor?" Loki answers, irritated. "I do not _desire_ this. I never _have_. I was thought dead, and for me, that proved a convenience. You could not come back here and once again imprison me if you knew naught of my survival. Odin would know, and so I did what I must to ensure my freedom."

Loki can see in his brother's eyes a reluctant understanding, if still plain displeasure, yet still it is a relief, to know Thor will not simply haul off with him to imprisonment.

"Then we are going to Midgard." His brother states flatly. "To find our father."

Loki hesitates, the words coming quick to his tongue to once again deny himself Odin's parentage. Only he checks himself. What use is there, in continuing such? Thor will insist otherwise, and Loki... is too tired now, to fight.

"What will you do with me, when we find him?" He asks his brother.

He could flee now. Step onto the shadow paths, where Thor could not follow.

Only...

There is something in him. Some terrible part which longs for his brother's company. Some terrible part he has never fully be able to rid himself of.

And even if Thor cannot follow him onto the paths... there are others who can. Others who will. And he would be alone, with only his magic for defense.

His fate is sure then, if he takes that path.

"I know not." Thor answers.

Perhaps it is sure too, if he takes the one Thor offers. But he cannot know that. And so it is the one he will take.

"Then give me your hand." He reaches out to Thor, and Thor takes hold of him.

Loki says nothing as he pulls them through the shadows. From out of their realm and into the one of man.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

Midgard is a filthy realm, filled with filthy beings.

Loki likes it not, and wishes the moment they arrive he could be away from this place, with it's petty, weak and selfish humans.

He never could fathom why it is Thor loves them so. Why it is he loves this world.

He remembers, when they had been very young, and Odin had brought them here, he and Thor. He remembers how once they had lived, these humans. Fractured and divided, torn apart by war and superstition. He remembers their lust for power, even amongst the villages and tribes of what they now called Norway. Their violence and mistrust of one another. He remembers seeing men kill each other for weapons worth nothing, because they were starving and there was food to be found nowhere, nothing even to steal, their ignorance manifest in fields waiting to be farmed, and they knowing nothing of how to do it.

They were hardly changed now.

Loki knew of Midgard.

He knew of the abundance of their resources, and yet still there was among them mass populations of starving people. People who had not food nor water, while in places like this, places like _America_ , there was a grotesque glut of such, and waste of those things on a scale most phenomenal. So great an abundance, the people here grew fat on it, and knew not what to do with all that was still left, and so threw it away in trash heaps which built ever higher towards the skies, even as they tore open the earth to bury the evidence of their excess and greed. And yet even here, there too were people starving on the streets, begging for currency to instead drown their misery in drink, and most walking past them with nakedly feigned ignorance, the fear and disgust barely concealed within their countenance. A world broken up into countries, each vying for its own place of power, its own dominance. Each speaking a different language, divides upon divides. Hatred and fear and contempt for each other.

All the same species.

At least upon Asgard, their hatred and fear extended only to other beings of other realms. At least there, they recognized in each other the same kind, and for that kinship did not murder each other.

Though Loki is not so consumed with disgust for this realm that he cannot recognize the good there is in man.

After those boyhood ventures led by Odin to this realm, Loki had grown fascinated enough to come here alone many times, and make a study of the humans and their ways.

They harbored a great capacity for compassion. He recognizes that. And among man, Loki thinks, he has seen no other race of beings so able to create true art. Oh, there have been some men and women among them whom Loki would have truly felt honored to meet and know.

But those humans are the rare exception indeed, and for the rest of them, Loki can feel naught but contempt and disgust.

And Thor... Thor had spent all of three Midgardian days among them, and taken possession of them as his own, as he oft did with all things which took his fancy. But Thor knew not the humans as he did. Knew not their languages as he did, their culture, their history and art.

Loki understands why it is Thor takes to them so.

They are weak, and Thor is strong, and ever has Thor been keen to use his power to protect those unable to do so for themselves.

… It is no true enthusiasm for their ways which his brother holds dear. Only his good heart which compels him to act on their behalf.

As ever, too, his brother fails to give thought to whether the humans want his help at all, or really, truly need it.

"How do we find him?" Thor asks, and Loki feels his face draw tight.

"... We seek out his energy." He tells his brother flatly, and remembers the sneering, deriding faces of Thor's companions on so many quests, when the five of them were faced with a problem solvable only by magic, and their begrudging acceptance when Loki would offer his abilities.

" _Yes, well, some do battles, others do tricks_..."

Thor says nothing now, and Loki thinks his brother has changed; has learnt even, and for that, Loki feels his own, mild gratitude.

"Will it take long?" Thor asks as Loki begins to concentrate, searching through Midgard's magic for the familiar feel of Odin's own. A magic as closely known to him as his own, even. As closely known as his mother's...

Loki had, as a boy, used to trail after Odin and beg his father's attention for his own meager displays of magical ability, for he knew, even then, Odin's power was the greatest in all the realms, and he had so wanted to impress him...

A flush of anger stabs within his chest and for a moment he loses focus, his eyes coming open to find Thor staring back at him.

"... It will take a moment." He answers, frustrated. Whether at Thor or himself, it is difficult to say. "There are other magic users on this realm, though their power is not their own."

"... You mean there are sorcerer's among the humans?" Thor questions, sounding almost amused.

"Apparently." Loki answers, and he can feel his lips twitch upwards, nearly smiling. It _was_ rather amusing. A small few of them seem to have worked out how to tap into Midgard's magical energy and harness it, though Loki has little doubt their craft is rudimentary at best.

His amusement grows as he senses the attack launched suddenly upon him by one such mortal. Clumsy and obvious, and Loki steps aside as the portal opens along the ground where he had a moment ago stood.

"A portal." Thor observes, voice dry, and Loki cannot help it now as he bursts into laughter, Thor plainly as amused with the attempt as he.

"What fool would attempt such?" Thor goes on, glaring at the swirling energy with naked derision.

Loki leans towards it, glancing through to the other side, and smirks to himself.

A pocket dimension, it appeared, doubtless intended to keep him falling in space.

Well, the little mage was soon to discover his error, Loki thinks.

"Let's find out." Loki says, and he reaches out, grasping hold of Thor's wrist.

"Loki, wait..." Thor starts, but that's as far as Loki lets him before he drags his brother through a portal of his own creating, latching hold of the human's energy and pulling them through folded space to some ornately decorated dwelling, belonging no doubt to some pretentious ass of a man.

Loki harbors no ambivalence in that judgment upon seeing the mortal's shocked face. No, indeed, a pretentious ass of a man.

"How did you..." he begins stupidly and Loki steps at him.

The spell he throws out is again clumsy and of amateur, and Loki bats it aside, dissipating the energy into particles.

The man is too slow to react as Loki reaches out, grabbing hold him by the collar of his cape and lifting him bodily.

"Loki!" Thor warns, but Loki ignores him, pressing his palm to the mortal's temple.

The man screams with the sudden, burning cold, and Loki sneers up at him.

"Little man, you err _greatly,_ " Loki tells him. "in attacking a god."

"Loki, _enough_. Put him down." Thor's hand is heavy on his shoulder, a plain warning, and it is an effort to Loki, not to turn and strike his brother's touch from him.

He could sear the human's brain from his skull, or cast a world of terrors into his thoughts and drive him quick to madness. Or more simply still he could snap his neck in a single move and put the wretch out of his misery.

Thor would be upset if he did any of those things, Loki thinks.

He drops the human, letting him crumple to the floor, and steps back, eying the amulet round his neck for the first time.

He feels his face drain of color.

He thought he had felt... but then... he hadn't thought...

"From where did you get that?" He asks the man as he trembles on hands and knees, gasping through the pain still radiating through his skull. "Round your neck. From where did you _get_ that?!"

The man seems unable to answer and Thor comes up beside him.

"What is it Loki? Why sound you so alarmed?"

Loki gestures violently towards the buffoon.

"Do you not sense it Thor?" He asks impatiently. "This fool bears round his neck an Infinity Stone."

"What?" Thor starts, quickly adopting Loki's own discomfiture. "How?"

"I know not." Loki replies, his anxiety increasing further. "As ever it seems the mortal's remain ignorant to their own folly."

Thor shakes his head, stepping closer to the man.

"He cannot have it." He states, and for once Loki agrees entirely.

"Hold brother." Loki stops him. "He's spelled it. It won't be easily removed."

Thor looks at him, incredulous.

"Can you not break it?" He asks, astonished.

"I can." Loki tells him. "But it would take time."

"You cannot take The Eye of Agamotto." The mortal gasps, finally staggering to his feet.

"... The eye of Agamotto?" Loki questions. "You mean the time stone?

"Whatever you choose to call it," the man wheezes, putting a hand to his head. "I am its guardian. Earth's Sorcerer Supreme."

"Earth's Sorcerer Supreme?" Loki repeats, and cannot help the peel of laughter which slips from his throat. "Your power is paltry, further still, not your own. You generate it from the magicks of this realm and, now I see, from that stone hung round your neck. A power you have no right to, nor the means to control. There are those who would take it from you by force. A force you cannot hope to counter..."

Memories writhe and twist in Loki's brain. Power. So much immense power, his own all but vanished entire.

He had been dying, when he fell there. His magic ebbed low beyond its limits, used up in the terror filled instinct to survive.

The cold of space overwhelmed even the rough hide of a frost giant, it seemed...

Hands more as claws upon him, and they had dragged him there, before that being. A thing Loki had heard tell of only in tales and legend. A being from a race of Titans.

He feels his throat close tight at the rush of sensation in his head, fear thick in his mouth at the flood of memories. The taste of blood and metal and rancid bile. Like choking to death on his own tongue.

… Thanos.

What had Thanos done to him...? What had he...?

The memories are there, and he cannot look at them.

He knows not what wounds worse. The fear of those things, or the shame he had tasted, for his own weakness. His own cowardice in the face of such power. How he had begged... Oh, Norns... how he had begged for him to stop...

"Loki!"

Thor's hand wraps gently round the nape of his neck and he looks up, seeing his brother standing there, looking down at him with grave worry etched upon his features.

"What is it? Are you ill?"

Loki feels his legs weak beneath him, his skin flushed and hands trembling, and for a moment his voice will not come to him.

He shakes his head, forcing his eyes past Thor to the mortal.

"There are things which I cannot explain here." He tells his brother. "Things out there which... would have this power." He gestures towards the stone.

"... The one who sent you for the Tesseract?" Thor says after a moment, and Loki's eyes cut to him, surprised. He never had been sure if Thor truly meant his words, that time. How conscious Thor had been of his correctness, when he had asked him who it was that controlled him then.

He nods weakly.

"Aye." He says. No use in pretense now.

Thor nods at him in understanding, and Loki feels a relief so strong he grows dizzy from it.

He doesn't understand why.

"If we leave that stone with him," Loki nods towards the mortal. "it will be taken. And if it is, I cannot..." again his feels his throat threatening to close at the wave of fear which whites out his thoughts. "I cannot express the peril in which the universe will be placed." His eyes lift to Thor. "There is a reason I so failed in my attempt on the Tesseract Thor. There is a _reason_."

He watches his brother's face tighten, his eyes lighting with a dawning realization, mingled with certainty.

"I thought..." he starts, pauses, thinking over his words. Another change in Thor, Loki thinks. He never used to think so carefully over such things. "You were not acting yourself. I thought that. It was unlike you to act so recklessly. I did not... I did not allow myself to dwell on it. I... thought only..."

There is shame in Thor's eyes suddenly. Naked shame, and Loki steps away from him, his stomach tight with queasy uncertainty. He is not used to such looks in his brother's eyes. Not used to hearing him admit to any mistake.

Loki had thought... he had thought he would revel in it, were Thor ever to consciously face his own blindness. Only now he finds the uncertainty in Thor unsettling. Something like a twisting confirmation of his own fear.

He likes it not.

He likes it not at all.

"What do you need me to do?" Thor asks and again Loki looks to him, again taken aback. His brother is earnest, eyes bright with his sincerity. "To help retrieve the stone from this man." He clarifies. "What do you need me to do?"

"Hold on a minute!" The mortal protests. "I don't know who you people think you are, but..."

"Hold him for me." Loki tells Thor, and Thor moves without further prompting.

The mortal launches another of his clumsy attacks, and it is Thor this time who bats it aside with Mjolnir, moving with what has always been shocking speed for a warrior of his size. He is upon the man in an instant, wrestling him to the ground as easily as he would a child, and Loki wonders not for the first time how it is Thor is so able to control his great strength.

Loki moves when he sees the man held fast, ignoring his hysterical screams and protests.

The spell he's cast upon the stone is moderately impressive, for something crafted by a mortal, but not anything Loki has not encountered before, and he knows with some patience, he'll be able to undo its knots.

Though, he has to admit, the shrill voice of the man is already beginning to grate heavy, and it takes more effort than likely the spell will to stay his hand from smothering the idiot.

He is perhaps half an hour into undoing the spell work when he feels it.

From Thor's startled expression, his brother feels it too.

"... What is that?" He asks, face already set grim in determination.

Loki doesn't answer, waiting, reaching out his magic to feel for the energy again. And it comes a moment later. A powerful force of disruption. And he can taste the magic of Odin upon it. A spell cast by his adopted father, itself in the throws of coming undone.

Alarm spikes through Loki's heart and he stands abruptly, his hands leaving his own work, nervous tension filling his gut.

He knows not of anyone who should be capable of undoing a spell cast by the All-Father.

It follows fast he catches the energy of Odin himself, only it is passive and yielding, and in an instant Loki knows...

His heart twists with something sick and awful, throat tight with a rush of horrid emotion.

He cannot keep it from his face as Thor lets go the mortal and stands with him, coming near.

"Loki, what is it?" He asks.

The man scrambles away from them, and Loki should not let him go. He cannot let him keep the stone, only...

"Loki..." Thor calls his name again, voice thick with urgency and fear.

His eyes cut to his brother, and he can barely swallow past the knot in his throat.

"... It's Odin." He manages to say, his voice weak and shaking.

No, he thinks. He shouldn't care. He _shouldn't_. Only he does. Norns, he does. Odin was not so old that he should...

" _Loki_!"

"He is in Norway." Loki stammers out. "Thor, he's..."

"Then bring us to him." Thor cuts him short before he can say, and Loki does not know whether it is relief or greater dread he feels. When Thor finds out, when Thor sees what is happening, he will blame him, likely. And if he did not kill him before, he very well may now.

But he cannot keep this truth from his brother. Thor will discover, whether now or after.

More still, it was Thor's right to know. Loki has no claim to keep this from him.

He reaches out, grabbing hold of Thor's hand, and once more pulls them through to the shadow paths, taking them where their father stands dying.

/

 **AN: Hey guys! Thanks for reading and I hope you're continuing to enjoy. So, I guess it's pretty obvious by now that I'm taking this in a very different direction from the film. Full disclosure, I absolutely hated Ragnarok with a burning passion, most of all because of how it totally disregarded any and all previous characterization of both Loki and Thor from the other films, and how it treated Loki's trauma and pain from the previous films as fodder to be made into a joke. Particularly making Loki the butt of almost every single joke and the fool to every other character in the film. So, as you can probably tell, I'm saying screw all of that and doing what I want here. If that offends you, I can't really apologize, because, well, it's my story and I'll do what I like with it. If you enjoyed though, I'm glad and I hope you continue to! Please leave a comment if you get a chance!**


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